The Scarlet Gown eBook

And now I own, with some small spleen,
A most confounded ass I’ve been;
The glory seems an empty breath,
And I am nearly bored to death
With Reason, Consciousness, and Will,
And other things beyond my skill,
Discussed in books all darkly planned
And more in number than the sand.
Yet that M.A. still haunts my sight,
With something of its former light.

TRIOLET

After the melting of the snow
Divines depart and April comes;
Examinations nearer grow
After the melting of the snow;
The grinder wears a face of woe,
The waster smokes and twirls his
thumbs;
After the melting of the snow
Divines depart and April comes.

VIVIEN’S SONG

AT THE L.L.A. EXAMINATION

In Algebra, if Algebra be ours, x and x^2
can ne’er be equal powers, Unless x=1,
or none at all.

It is the little error in the sum,
That by and by will make the answer come
To something queer, or else not come at all.

The little error in the easy sum,
The little slit across the kettle-drum,
That makes the instrument not play at all.

It is not worth correcting: let it go:
But shall I? Answer, Prudence, answer, no.
And bid me do it right or not at all.

THE WASTER SINGING AT MIDNIGHT

AFTER LONGFELLOW

Loud he sang the song Ta Phershon
For his personal diversion,
Sang the chorus U-pi-dee,
Sang about the Barley Bree.

In that hour when all is quiet
Sang he songs of noise and riot,
In a voice so loud and queer
That I wakened up to hear.

Songs that distantly resembled
Those one hears from men assembled
In the old Cross Keys Hotel,
Only sung not half so well.

For the time of this ecstatic
Amateur was most erratic,
And he only hit the key
Once in every melody.

If ’he wot prigs wot isn’t his’n
Ven he’s cotched is sent to prison,’
He who murders sleep might well
Adorn a solitary cell.

But, if no obliging peeler
Will arrest this midnight squealer,
My own peculiar arm of might
Must undertake the job to-night.

THIRTY YEARS AFTER

Two old St. Andrews men, after a separation of nearly
thirty years, meet by chance at a wayside inn.
They interchange experiences; and at length one of
them, who is an admirer of Mr. Swinburne’s Poems
and Ballads, speaks as follows:

If you were now a bejant,
And I a first year man,
We’d grind and grub together
In every kind of weather,
When Winter’s snows were regent,
Or when the Spring began;
If you were now a bejant,
And I a first year man.

If you were what you once were,
And I the same man still,
You’d be the gainer by it,
For you—­you can’t deny it—­
A most uncommon dunce were;
My profit would be nil,
If you were what you once were,
And I the same man still.